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Finding the Body in the Brain. From

Simulation Theory to Embodied
Simulation.
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Finding theBody intheBrain

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From Simulation Theory

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1Introduction

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I first met Alvin Goldman in the April of 1998 in Tucson, Arizona. I had been invited to
give a plenary talk on mirror neurons (MNs) at the second Towards a Science of Consciousness
conference. MNs are motor neurons we discovered in macaques motor cortex that
discharge both when the action is executed and when it is observed being performed by
someone else (di Pellegrino etal. 1992; Gallese etal. 1996; Rizzolatti etal. 1996). It was
probably the first time that our discovery was presented to a wide multidisciplinary
audience. Alvin attended the talk, asked me questions and afterwards invited me for
lunch. In front of delicious Mexican food he briefly introduced me to simulation theory
(ST), which back then I wasnt acquainted with. Alvin pointed out the relevance of MNs
for ST, as the former could constitute an important subpersonal component of some
form of lowlevel simulation.
We decided to deepen our discussions and finally agreed upon writing a paper together,
which appeared in the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences the very same year (Gallese and
Goldman 1998). In that paper we concluded that a cognitive continuity exists within
the domain of intentional state attribution from nonhuman primates to humans, and that
MNs represent its neural correlate. This continuity is grounded in the ability of both
human and nonhuman primates to detect goals in the observed behavior of conspecifics.
The capacity to understand action goals, already present in nonhuman primates, relies
on a process that matches the observed behavior to the action plans of the observer. [].
Actiongoal understanding [] constitutes a necessary phylogenetic stage within the evolutionary path leading to the fully developed mindreading abilities of human beings
(Gallese and Goldman 1998: 500).
Goldman and His Critics, First Edition. Edited by Brian McLaughlin and Hilary K. Kornblith.
2016 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2016 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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I think such statement still to be valid: the empirical evidence on MNs accumulated
during the following two decades has shown that in both macaques and humans MNs
indeed do not map just movements, but also goalrelated motor acts. However, after the
publication of our 1998 paper I developed the idea that the type of mindreading addressed
by ST as conceived by Goldman was perhaps cognitively exceeding the functional properties of MNs. I wanted to provide a simulation type account of mirroring that would not
depend on introspection. At the same time, I felt the need to specify a simulation process
that could also be applied to other neural phenomena not directly related to mindreading,
like the way the cortical motor system maps space around the body, the activation of hand
graspingrelated neurons during the observation of manipulable objects (canonical neurons) (see Murata etal. 1997; Raos etal. 2006), and the relationship between the activation
of the cortical motor system and the understanding of actionrelated language. Thus, I
introduced the notion of embodied simulation (ES) (Gallese 2003a, 2003b, 2005a, 2005b).
In the present chapter I review these issues and clarify some aspects of ES. In particular, I discuss the notion of simulation as reuse. I will conclude by introducing some recent
developments of ES in relation to language, proposing that ES instantiates a form of
paradigmatic knowledge. Before moving to ES we must first address how cognitive neuroscience revolutionized our knowledge on the cortical motor system, by introducing the
notion of motor cognition.

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2 Motor Cognition

For decades the main goal of the neurophysiological investigation of the cortical motor
system was uniquely focused on the study of elementary physical features of movement
such as force, direction, and amplitude. However, a series of empirical results shows that
the cortical motor system plays an important role in cognition. In particular, the neurophysiological study of the ventral premotor cortex and the posterior parietal cortex of
macaque monkeys demonstrated that the cortical motor system is functionally organized
in terms of motor goals. Many cortical motor neurons do not discharge during the execution of elementary movements, but are active before and during motor actsmovements
executed to accomplish a specific motor outcomesuch as grasping, tearing, holding or
manipulating objects. These motor neurons map the relationship, in motor terms, between
the agent and the object of the motor act. F5 neurons indeed become active only if a particular type of effectorobject relation (for example, handobject) is executed until the
relation leads to a different motor outcome (for example, to take possession of a piece of
food, to throw it away, to break it, to bring it to the mouth, etc.) regardless of the effector
employed, (see Rizzolatti etal. 2000), or of the movements the effector employs to grasp
the object (Umilt etal. 2008).
A further element of novelty about the cognitive properties of the cortical motor
system concerns its role in perception, since we now know that many motor neurons are
endowed with sensory properties. Several studies consistently showed that premotor and
parietal areas contain neurons that perceptually respond to visual, auditory and somatosensory inputs (see Rizzolatti and Gallese 1997; Fogassi etal. 1996; Rizzolatti etal.2000).

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Altogether, these findings led to the formulation of the Motor Cognition hypothesis
as a leading element for the emergence of social cognition (see Gallese et al. 2009).
According to this hypothesis, cognitive abilities like the mapping of space and its perception, the perception of objects occupying our visual landscape, the hierarchical
representation of action with respect to a distal goal, the detection of motor goals and
action anticipation are possible because of the peculiar functional architecture of the
motor system, organized in terms of goaldirected motor acts. The proper development of such functional architecture likely scaffolds more cognitively sophisticated
social cognitive abilities.
Whenever we look around, we are somehow aware of what is reachable and what is not.
We can anticipate whether a falling object may hit us or not. We can calibrate the movement in space of our hand so as to be able to catch a fly. We can identify objects, and
locations in space where sounds may come from with a remarkable precision. All of these
perceptual qualities are not the outcome of the impression exerted by the external world on
our perceptual and cognitive systems. Cognitive neuroscience tells us a different story.
These perceptual qualities are the intentional correlates of the motor potentialities
expressed by our situated body.
A peculiar example comes from the relationship between motor potentialities and spatial mapping, exemplified by macaque monkeys ventral premotor area F4 (Matelli etal.
1985), part of a parietopremotor cortical network mapping specific sensory events in the
space near the body onto the neural representation of arm and head motor acts (Rizzolatti
and Luppino 2001). F4 neurons not only control orienting/avoidance movements of the
head and reaching movements of the upper limb, they also respond to tactile stimuli
applied to the same body parts whose movements they control, and to visual and auditory
stimuli, provided they occur within monkeys peripersonal space. F4 neurons visual and
auditory receptive fields (RFs) are bodycentered, that is, they are anchored to body parts
and move along with them. Thus, perceiving a visual object or hearing a sound within
peripersonal space evokes the motor simulation of the most appropriate actions towards
that very same spatial location (Rizzolatti etal. 1997; Gallese 2005b).
Most interestingly, a putative human homologue of monkey area F4 was identified in
the premotor cortex. Bremmer et al. (2001) demonstrated that the ventral region of
human premotor cortex responds to tactile stimuli applied to the face and to visual and
auditory stimuli presented within its peripersonal space. Furthermore, repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) over premotor cortex interferes with the processing
of multisensory stimuli within the hands peripersonal space (Serino etal. 2011). These
results show that the cortical motor system both in nonhuman primates and humans
maps the bodys motor potentialities and that such mapping enables the multisensory
integration of self bodilyrelated stimuli affecting the body and its surrounding space.
Another instantiation of motor cognition comes from canonical neurons. They d
ischarge
both during hand grasping of objects and their observation in absence of any detectable
movement of the monkey (see Jeannerod etal.1995; Murata etal. 1997; Rizzolatti etal.
2001; Raos etal. 2006; Umilt etal. 2007). Very often, a strict congruence has been observed
between the type of grip controlled by a given neuron and the size or shape of the object
effective in triggering its visual response. In a considerable percentage of neurons a

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congruence is observed between the response during the execution of a specific type of
grip, and the visual response to objects that, although differing in shape, nevertheless all
afford the same type of grip (see Murata etal. 1997; Raos etal. 2006). Thus, the very same
neuron controlling a hand prehension suitable to grasp small objects will also fire equally
well to the mere visual presentation of small objects like a small sphere, a small cone or a
small cube. The objects shapes are different but they all specify a similar type of grasping.
The function of F5 canonical grasping neurons can hardly be defined in purely
sensory or motor terms alone. Within the cortical motor system, objects are processed
in motor relationallyspecified terms (Gallese 2000). According to the logic of such
neural network, a series of physical entities, 3D objects, are identified, differentiated,
and represented not in relation to their mere visual appearance, but in relation to the
effect of the potential interaction with a situated potentially acting agent. This property qualifies as an intentional type of representation, although still fully within the
functional architecture of the cortical motor system. The first conclusion we can draw
is that canonical neurons contribute to a multimodal representation of individual
objectrelations. The visual world is always also the horizon of our potential pragmatic
relation to it (Gallese and Sinigaglia 2010).
What is remarkable here is the fact that the functionality of the motor system literally
carves out a pragmatic Umwelt, dynamically surrounding our body. The profile of peripersonal space is not arbitrary: it maps and delimits a perceptual space expressingand
being constituted bythe motor potentialities of the body parts it surrounds. Manipulable
objects, like the coffee mug sitting on my desk, are not only 3D shapes, visual forms with
a given size, orientation, color, texture, and contrast. The coffee mug I am looking at now
is the potential target of my intentional action and it is mapped as such by my cortical
motor system. I submit that an important component of my perceptual experience of the
coffee mug is determined, constrained, and ultimately constituted by the limits imposed
by what my body can potentially do with it.
This evidence enables one to appreciate how the brain can map intentional actions.
Such mapping appears to be more basic with respect to the standard propositional
account of the representation of action. The intentional character, the aboutness of the
representational format of our mind could be deeply rooted in the intrinsic relational
character of the bodily format of bodily action representation. This, in turn, shows how
intrinsically intertwined action, perception, and cognition are (Hurley 1998; see also
Gallese 2000).
Content is not exhausted by the propositional format of representation.
Representational content cannot be fully explained without considering the ongoing
modeling process of organisms as currently integrated with the object to be represented,
by intending it. This integration process between the representing organism and the
represented object is articulated in multiple fashions, for example, by intending to
explore it by moving the eyes, by walking towards it, by intending to hold it in the focus
of attention, by intending to grasp it, and ultimately, by thinking about it (see Gallese
2000; Gallese and Metzinger 2003).
The same motor circuits that control the ongoing behavior of individuals within their
environment also map distances, locations and objects in that very same environment,

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thus defining and shaping in motor terms their representational content. The way the
visual world is represented by the motor system incorporates agents idiosyncratic way to
interact with it. To put it simply, the producer and repository of representational content
is not the brain per se, but the brainbody system, by means of its interactions with the
world of which it is part.
I think these aspects already in themselves justify the necessity to define a functional
process, neither confined to mindreading, nor committed to a propositional representational format. ES is meant to be this sort of functional mechanism.

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The empirical investigation of the neural basis of social cognition has been one of the
most important targets of cognitive neuroscience during the last two decades. This
research has repeatedly shown that a series of cortical regions (for example, mesial frontal
areas, the temporoparietal junction, etc.) are activated during explicit mentalizing tasks
(for review, see Frith and Frith 2010). Unfortunately, most of these studies do not go
beyond a mere correlational enterprise. The truth is that we do not know why these cortical areas are relevant to mindreading; unless we content ourselves with the tautological
statement that mindreading is implemented in those brain areas.
Two further problems of this approach are the reification of mental notions like
intention, desire, and belief into things to be found at specific brain locations, and the
questionable mindreading specificity underlying the activation of the same brain regions.
Apossible way out of this impasse may stem from a comparative perspective on social
cognition, enabling the study of the neurophysiological mechanisms implicated in basic
aspects of social cognition in nonhuman primates like macaque monkeys (Gallese 2007;
see also Gallese 2014; Ammaniti and Gallese 2014). As will be shown in this chapter, the
investigation of the functional properties of the cortical motor system of macaques turned
out to be quite fruitful.
The discovery in the early 1990s of MNs in the brain of macaques (Gallese et al. 1996;
Rizzolatti etal. 1996), and the subsequent discovery of mirror mechanisms (MMs) in the
human brain (see Gallese etal. 2004; Rizzolatti and Sinigaglia 2010) demonstrate that a
direct modality of access to the meaning of others behavior is available, a modality that is
different from the explicit attribution of propositional attitudes. MNs are motor neurons
that not only respond to the execution of movements and actions, but also during their
perception when executed by others. The relational character of behavior as mapped by
the cortical motor system enables the appreciation of purpose without relying on explicit
propositional inference.
The relation between actions and their outcomes was traditionally assumed to be
largely independent of the motor processes and representations underpinning action
execution. Such processes and representations would concern elementary motor features,
such as joint displacements or muscle contractions. However, empirical evidence challenges this view. We have seen that motor processes may involve motor representations of
action outcomes (for example, to grasp, to place, etc.), and not only kinematic or dynamic

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components of actions. This suggests that beliefs, desires, and intentions are neither
primitive, nor the only bearers of intentionality in action. We do not necessarily need to
metarepresent in propositional format the motor intentions of others to understand
them. Motor outcomes and motor intentions are part of the vocabulary spoken by the
motor system. In several situations we do not explicitly ascribe intentions to others; we
simply detect them. Indeed, I posited that bodily formatted motor representation is
enough to ground the directedness of an action to its outcome (Gallese 2000, 2003a,
2003b; see also Butterfill and Sinigaglia 2014).
The discovery of MNs gives us a new empirically founded notion of intersubjectivity
connoted first and foremost as intercorporealitythe mutual resonance of intentionally
meaningful sensorimotor behaviors. The ability to understand others as intentional agents
does not exclusively depend on propositional competence, but it is in the first place
dependent on the relational nature of action. According to this hypothesis, it is possible to
directly understand others basic actions by means of the motor equivalence between what
others do and what the observer can do.
Intercorporeality thus becomes the primordial source of knowledge that we have of
others. The motor simulation instantiated by neurons endowed with mirror properties
is probably the neural correlate of this human faculty, describable in functional terms as
an instantiation of ES (Gallese 2003a, 2005a, 2011; Gallese and Sinigaglia 2011).
Action constitutes only one dimension of the rich baggage of experiences involved in
interpersonal relations. Every interpersonal relation implies the sharing of a multiplicity
of states like, for instance, the experience of emotions and sensations. As originally
hypothesized by Goldman and Gallese (2000), empirical research demonstrated that the
very same nervous structures involved in the subjective experience of emotions and sensations are also active when such emotions and sensations are recognized in others. A multiplicity of mirroring mechanisms are present in our brain. It was proposed that these
mechanisms, thanks to the intentional attunement they generate (Gallese 2006), allow
us to recognize others as our fellows, likely making intersubjective communication and
mutual implicit understanding possible. The functional architecture of ES seems to
constitute a basic characteristic of our brain, making possible our rich and diversified
intersubjective experiences, being at the basis of our capacity to empathize with others.

4 Embodied Simulation andSimulation Theory

MNs boosted a renewed interest in simulation theories and also suggested an embodied
approach to simulation (Gallese 2003a, 2003b, 2005a, 2005b, 2014). Embodied simulation
(ES) aimed to account for basic social interactions by means of a neurobiologically plausible and theoretically unitary framework. What are the main differences between ES and
ST? First of all, as shown above, ES is not confined to mindreading. ST is mainly applied
as a fundamental heuristic strategy for mindreading. ST claims that understanding
others behavior usually involves pretense. People first create in themselves pretend
desires, preferences and beliefs of the sort they take others to have. These are then fed into
their own decisionmaking mechanism, which outputs pretend decisions used to predict

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others decisions (see Goldman 2006). Simulation can also be used to retrodict mental
states, that is, to identify which mental states led another individual to perform a given
action. Gallese and Goldman suggested that MNs discharge serves the purpose of
retrodicting the target mental states, moving backwards from the observed action
(Gallese and Goldman 1998: 497), thus representing a primitive version, or possibly a
precursor in phylogeny, of a simulation heuristic that might underlie mindreading
(Gallese and Goldman 1998: 498).
Two questions remained open to further developments and discussions: 1) What kind
of simulation heuristic is involved in the MM, for there does not seem to be room here for
pretense, or for belief and desire attribution? 2) What kind of mindreading is rooted in the
MM? ES theory was introduced also to attempt answering both of these questions.
Two different views on the core meaning of mental simulation are currently being
proposed: simulation as resemblance and simulation as reuse. According to the first view,
a mental state or process simulates another mental state or process just in case it copies,
reproduces, or resembles the second state or process and in doing so performs a function
(Goldman 2006; see also Gordon 1986; Heal 1986; Goldman 1989; Currie and Ravenscroft
2002). The notion of simulation as resemblance seems to fit the standard story of simulation type mindreading. The simulator supposedly forms pretend mental states matching,
as closely as possible, initial mental states of the target, and uses her own decisionmaking
system to generate pretend mental states which match the targets states as closely as possible (Goldman 2006, 2009).
According to the alternative view, simulation as reuse, there is mental simulation just
in case the same mental state or process that is used for one purpose is reused for another
purpose (Hurley 2008; Gallese 2009, 2011, 2014; Gallese and Sinigaglia 2011). The main
argument of the reuse view is that, on almost any story, all simulation type mindreading
requires any resemblance of the mental states or processes between the simulator and the
target to arise from the reuse of the simulators own mental states or processes. At bottom
it is mental reuse, not resemblance, that drives mindreading (Hurley 2008).
Lets look more closely at what the notion of reuse entails. For quite a few years (Gallese
2000) I have been advocating a role for exaptation (Gould and Lewontin 1979) as a key
explanatory element of the phylogenesis of human social cognition. Exaptation refers to
the shift in the course of evolution of a given trait or mechanism, which is later on reused
to serve new purposes and functions. According to this view, which I sketched in the preceding sections, intentionality, the aboutness of our representations is in the first
placean exapted property of the action models instantiated by the cortical motor system
(see Gallese 2000: 34). The motor system not only houses causative properties but also
content properties.
I subsequently introduced the notions of neural exploitation and neural reuse
(Gallese and Lakoff 2005; Gallese 2008) to refer to the newly acquired commitment of
sensorimotor neural resources to language and conceptual thought. Sensorimotor
systems, originally evolved to guide our interactions with the world, once decoupled from
the common final motor pathway and dynamically reconnected with other cortical
areasas, among others, the prefrontal regions of the brain, can be put into the service of
newly acquired cognitive skills.

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This perspective is gaining growing consensus as epitomized by Dehaenes neuronal

recycling hypothesis (2005), or by Andersons hypothesis on neural reuse (2010). The
neuronal recycling hypothesis was prompted by the discovery of a cortical visual area
in the human occipitotemporal region (the visual word form area, VWFA) specifically
activated by early perceptual stages of the reading process. Such specificity is clearly
readingdependent, as it doesnt show up in individuals who never learned to read. In
these individuals VWFA is activated by other nonlanguagerelated visual stimuli. Since
reading and writing are very late cognitive acquisitions of our species, VWFA specificity
for reading cannot be genetically predetermined, but it rather exemplifies an instantiation
of reuse or recycling.
This notion of reuse holds that a given brain areas neural specialization for processing
a certain type of sensory stimuli can also instantiate a novel usedependent functional
specialization for different stimuli of the same sensory modality. Such hypothesis does not
make any strong evolutionary claim, as reuse is basically conceived of only at the ontogenetic level. Novel cultural habits, like writing and reading, have the potentiality to remodel
in a usedependent way a given regional brain function in the course of one individuals
life by amplifying the set of stimuli belonging to the same sensory domain it can process.
I applied the notion of neural reuse in relation to the MM and ES as a general principle
of brain function. I applied it to social cognition in general, and to language and conceptual thought in particular (Gallese and Lakoff 2005; Gallese 2008). According to
Andersons (2010) more systematic view, by neural reuse different brain areas participate
in different functions through their dynamical engagement with different brain circuits.
Furthermore, a given cognitive function can be supported by a variety of brain circuits;
the newer in evolutionary terms a cognitive function is, the wider is the brain circuit
underpinning it.
In contrast to Dehaene, both Andersons and my hypotheses on neural reuse do make
strong evolutionary claims as they deal with the phylogenesis of human cognitive functions,
challenging the strict adaptationism heralded by evolutionary psychology. Neural reuse not
only enables the cortical motor system to process and integrate perceptual stimuli, hence
instantiating novel cognitive functions, but also sheds new light on the phylogenesis and
ontogenesis of the vicarious experiences characterizing human intersubjectivity.
Which core notion of mental simulation better fits the standard story of mindreading
is not at issue here. ES theory does not aim to provide a general notion of mental simulation, nor a unitary account of the different stages involved in simulation type mindreading. Rather, ES theory aims to explain the MM and related phenomena.
ES theory posits that the MM counts as implementing mental simulation processes
primarily because brain and cognitive resources typically used for one purpose are reused
for another purpose. For instance, the activation of parietopremotor cortical networks,
which typically serve the purpose of representing and accomplishing a single motor outcome (such as grasping something), or a hierarchy of motor outcomes (such as grasping
something for bringing to the mouth or for placing), might also serve the purpose of
attributing the same motor goal or motor intention to others. The same holds for emotions and sensations. Within the anterior insula the same voxels typically underpinning
the subjective experience of disgust also activate when attributing disgust to others.

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This does not imply that one should deny the MM its matching role. Quite the
contrary. From the very beginning the MM has been interpreted as a mechanism directly
matching the visual or auditory representation of observed actions, emotions or sensations with the observers own motor, visceromotor or somatosensory representations of
the same actions, emotions, and sensations, respectively. The direct matching, however, is
here primarily intrapersonal, since it pertains to the mental states or p
rocesses that an
individual undergoes both when planning action or experiencing e motions and sensations and when observing someone elses actions, emotions and sensations. Of course,
this matching may also allow for interpersonal similarity of mental states or processes, but
the latter would be strictly dependent upon the interpersonal sharing of the same neural
and cognitive resources (Gallese and Sinigaglia 2011). When such sharing is limited or
missing, people are not fully able or are not able at all to match the mental states or processes of others because they dont have suitable mental states or processes to reuse.
The simulational reuse of mental states and processes instantiated by ES is constitutively
embodied. Goldman and de Vignemont (2009) provided a very useful taxonomy of the
different notions of embodiment. Accordingly, embodied means that body parts, bodily
actions, or body representations play a crucial role in cognition. Note, however, that body
representations might be interpreted in terms of mental representations either with a
bodily content (representations of the body), or with a bodily format.
ES theory makes use of a notion of embodiment according to which mental states or
processes are embodied because of their bodily format. The crucial notion here is that
mental representations might differ in virtue not only of their content but also of their
format. Just as a map and a series of sentences might represent the same route with a
different format, so mental representations might have partly overlapping contents (for
example, an action outcome) while differing from one another in their format (for example, bodily instead of propositional).
The bodily format of a mental representation constrains what such mental representation can represent, because of the bodily constraints posed by the specific configuration of
the human body. We have seen how this applies to space, objects, and others behaviors and
experiences. A core claim of ES theory is that similar constraints apply both to the representations of ones own actions, emotions or sensations involved in actually acting and
experiencing and also to the corresponding representations involved in observing someone
else performing a given action or experiencing a given emotion or sensation. These constraints are similar because the representations have a common bodily format. Hence, ES
is the reuse of mental states and processes involving representations that have a bodily
format. The nature and the range of what can be achieved with ES are constrained by the
bodily format of the representations involved. It should be added that while ES as reuse is
fully consistent with the Bformat theory put forward by Goldman and de Vignemont
(2009), this doesnt necessarily imply that all forms of embodied c ognition should be based
on reuse. Indeed, the firing of a neuron or group of neurons in a premotor area as part of
a plan of action or a motor command would certainly qualify as an instantiation of embodied cognition according to the Bformat approach, but it wouldnt be an instance of reuse.
The bodily format also determines how ES contributes to mindreading. The term
mindreading is almost universally employed to refer to the human ability to understand

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others expressive behavior and the causes and reasons producing it. In spite of using this
term, I dont commit myself to the notion that understanding others just consists of
literally reading their minds. I suspect that the term mindreading might qualify different types of epistemic approaches to the other. My proposal is to consider mindreading,
as conceived of in a broad sense, as a non metarepresentational way of understanding
others, basically sharing a common crucial feature: the mapping of the other onto the self,
reciprocated by the mapping of the self on the other. This approach to intersubjectivity
qualifies as secondperson perspective (see Gallese 2014).
Mindreading as conceived of in a narrow sense, should instead qualify the type of
explicit thirdperson form of understanding we refer to when others behaviors or mental
states are opaque and ambiguous, thus requiring explanations. Unfortunately, the classic
approach to mindreading is to date unable to convincingly explain why a series of brain
areas like medial frontal areas and the temporoparietal junction systematically activate
during explicit mentalizing tasks, besides claiming that mindreading happens to be located
there (for a detailed discussion of this point, see Ammaniti and Gallese 2014: 36).
I posited that ES and the underpinning MMs by means of neural reuse can constitutively account for the representation of the motor goals of others actions by reusing ones
own bodily formatted motor representations, as well as of others emotions and sensations
by reusing ones own visceromotor and sensorimotor representations. ES can provide a
unified explanatory framework for mindreading as conceived of in the broad sense specified above. Our bodily acting and sensing nature appears to constitute the real transcendental basis upon which our experience of the social world is built.
A further element of convergence with Alvin Goldman consists in how ES is able to
attribute to others its contents. Basically, there are two ways in which a given mental content
can be attributed to others: the first one is explicit and representational, while the second
one is implicit and functional. It has been proposed that ES makes it possible to functionally
attribute mental processes and contents to others (Gallese and Sinigaglia 2011). Once the
attribution process is spelled out in functional terms, I guess Alvin Goldman would concede
that ES could constitutively support mindreading in the broad sense, as defined above.
Last but not least, I share with Alvin Goldman the idea that we cant renounce the
notion of representation, provided it comes in different formats, like the bodily one. If
this equates to a moderate approach to embodied cognitive science (see Goldman 2012),
then my approach is moderate too.
Understanding others is a complex enterprise. It requires the representation of others
proximal and distal goals, others emotional state, the identification of the beliefs, desires,
and intentions specifying the reasons promoting behavior, and the understanding of how
those reasons are linked to agents and to their behavior.

5 Body andLanguage: Facts andChallenges

One of the key challenges for the embodied approach to human social cognition consists in understanding whether and how our bodily nature determines some of the key
aspects identifying the uniqueness of human language. Are linguistic activities like

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denying, asking or doubting anchored to bodily mechanisms? The question is open

and empirical research must address this challenge in the coming years.
In the meantime, at least at a purely speculative level, let us try to delineate a possible
point of contact between the anthropogenic power of language and ES.
There is indeed a way to connect the common prelinguistic sphere to the linguistic
one (Gallese 2003b, 2007, 2008; Gallese and Lakoff 2005; Glenberg and Gallese 2011). It
consists in showing that language, when it refers to the body in action, brings into play the
neural resources normally used to move that very same body. Seeing someone performing
an action, like grabbing an object, and listening to or reading the linguistic description of
that action leads to a similar motor simulation that activates some of the same regions of
our cortical motor system, including those with mirror properties, normally activated
when we do perform that action.
These data on the role of ES in understanding language broadly confirm the thesis
according to which the bodily, sensory, and motor dimensions play a constitutive role in
language production and understanding. However, it seems that the relationship between
language and body does not move along a single direction. The fact is that language is
unequivocally constitutive of human nature and, as such, seems to offer us wholly human
modalities of experiencing our corporeity.
In this sense, neuroscientific data on the role of ES during understanding of language
also point to a complementary reading with respect to the one previously proposed. On
the one hand, ES might play a crucial role in understanding language. Indeed, if one
reversibly interferes with this process, for instance by means of transcranialTMS stimulation, understanding of language is jeopardized. On the other hand, language allows us,
and this is unique among all living species, to fix and relive specific aspects of our bodily
experience. Through language we can crystallize and relive fragments of experiences that
are not topical, that is to say are not my experiences now, but become a paradigm, a model,
for understanding others and us.
In the following section I briefly discuss the role of ES seen as a paradigm or model in
the light of the Aristotelian notion of paradeigma.ii The possibility of hypostatizing and
then reliving segments of our experiences independently of the immediate physical
context, or independently of specific physical stimuli, is a possibility that only the possession of language allows us to experience. The faculty of language is therefore, on one
side, rooted in corporeity but, in turn, it changes and shapes our way of living bodily
experiences.

6. Social Cognition, Body andLanguage: Esas aParadigm?

The relation between body and language was to a great extent underestimated in the last
century, thanks, above all, to Chomskys major influence. In 1966 Chomsky published a
book significantly entitled Cartesian Linguistics. It is from Descartes that the idea comes
that language has little to do with the body. The Cartesian thesis on the relationship
between language and body implies, on one side, that the body is not a substratum and
material of language and, on the other, that language is exclusively the tool to express a

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thought that is formed independently of language itself. According to Descartes and the
Cartesian tradition of which Chomsky too is part, language is the tool through which we
manifest an autonomous thought preceding languagea thought structured by logic but
certainly not by language, whose role is circumscribed and downsized to that of being a
mere label of thoughts (cf. Hinzen and Sheehan 2013 for a critical discussion of the issue).
The theses informing the Cartesian idea of language can today be challenged. Language
makes meaning general, releasing it from the context, that is, from the dimensions of who,
what, how, where, and when. Language provides us with a unique modality of reference
to the world, allowing us at the same time to transcend contingent determinations and to
define them at a different level, thanks to the use of concepts like subject, object, time,
space, universal, etc. Such concepts correspond to precise grammatical structures that,
most likely, contributed by coevolutionary dynamics to the structuring of rational
thought (Hinzen and Sheehan 2013).
Thanks to language we can speak of mankind without referring in particular to any of
the single individuals sharing the property of belonging to the human species. We can
speak of a subject aside from the individual embodiments of this attribute, etc. Language
provides us with general meaning, valid for everybody but, at the same time, being
nobodys meaning.
Interestingly enough, according to Giorgio Agamben (2008) what holds for everybody and nobody is referable to the Greek notion of paradeigma, originally explored by
Aristotle. The paradeigma is a type of argumentation that moves between individual and
individual according to a form of bipolar analogical knowledge. Agamben (2008: 234),
radicalizing Aristotles theses, maintains that the paradigm can only be conceived of by
abandoning the dichotomy between individual and universal: the rule does not exist
before the single cases to which it is applied. The rule is nothing but its own exhibition in
the single cases themselves, which thus it renders intelligible.
By applying the notion of paradigm to the grammatical rules of language, Agamben
highlights a central point: the linguistic rule derives from the suspension of the concrete
denotative application: That is to say, in order to be able to serve as an example, the
syntagm must be suspended from its normal function, and, nevertheless, it is precisely
through this nonoperation and this suspension that it can show how the syntagm works,
can allow the formulation of the rule (2008: 26). According to Agamben, in the paradigm, intelligibility does not precede the phenomenon, but is, so to speak, alongside it
(par) (2008: 29). In other words in the paradigm there is not an origin or an arch:
every phenomenon is the origin, every image is archaic (2008: 33).
In Agambens reading, the Aristotelian paradeigma is a good model to describe the
creation of linguistic rules. Starting from Agambens intuition and seeking to move one
step further, the hypothesis that we want to explore here is that the notion of paradeigma
is a good model not only for the creation of linguistic rules but also for the definition of
the embodied simulation mechanism. In this connection, simulation allows us, at a sensorimotor level, to hypostatize and reuse what holds for everybody and nobody.
To understand to what extent the analogy between ES and paradeigma is plausible it is
necessary to go back to Aristotle (2012). What is meant by paradeigma in Aristotelian
thought and in what context does Aristotle make use of this notion? The paradeigma is a

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typical form of rhetorical reasoning, which Aristotle discusses both in Prior Analytics and
in Rhetoric. Argumentation based on the paradeigma, for example, consists in the presentation by the orator of an exemplary case, based on a historical fact or a figment of the
imagination, as in the case of fables. It is the juxtaposition of the present situation and the
exemplary one that guides, or should guide, the actions of the person to whom the argumentation is addressed. Thus the paradeigma, among rhetorical argumentations, is that
which goes from the particular to the particular, from an exemplary case to the present
situation. Argumentation based on the paradeigma does not claim universality. The orator
is not bound to offer an exhaustive number of cases justifying a universally valid conclusion. One case is sufficient, provided that it is particularly suitable, precisely exemplary, in
relation to the context in which the argumentative discourse takes place.
A distinguishing feature of the paradeigma consists in always proceeding from what is
best known and first for us (Aristotle and Ross, 1978, II.19), or from what is for us most
immediate and most easily accessible, because being part of our baggage of experiences
and knowledge. At a different level of analysis, this feature also characterizes ES. The
condition for the simulation mechanism to be enacted is sharing a baggage of (motor)
experiences and knowledge. ES is enacted starting from what for us is first, that is, what
for us is known and easily accessible in terms of motor potentialities and experiences.
Sharing a repertoire of practices, experiences, and sensations is therefore an essential
condition, since only by starting from what is well known to us it is possible to identify
analogies between our actions and those of others. We understand the other starting from
our own bodily experience, which is what is best known and first for us, again using
Aristotles words. On the basis of this knowledge we identify similar elements in our experiences and as well as in those of others.
ES, when manifested in the phenomenon of action, emotion or sensation mirroring,
always involves an original IThou relationship in which the Thou is the term with
respect to which the self is constituted. On the other hand, the self is the basis on
which immediate and implicit understanding of the Thou is possible. The analogy with
the cognitive mechanism subtended by paradigmatic reasoning appears evident. Indeed,
in the case of Aristotles paradeigma, an example, a particular case, is understood because
it is close to our feeling, our experiences, our baggage of knowledge. And the process does
not stop here. This form of understanding of a particular that is not I will lead me to new
conclusions and to a deeper understanding of myself, of my particular case and of my
situation. Our experiences are therefore the measure from which we understand others
and their experiences. And others experiences are for us a condition for a deeper understanding of ourselves.
Thus, the ES underpinning my experience is also a paradeigma from which I can
understand what I observe in others and draw inferences from it for others and for myself.
The embodied simulation mechanism, thus defined, is constitutive of the process of
construction of meaning. In this connection, ES enacted while understanding language is
not my present experience but the paradeigma in relation to which some of our linguistic
expressions acquire a meaning that is rooted in the body. When we read or listen to the
description of an action, the process of simulation taking place in us is not the enactment
of the same action; we would be echopractic if we were unable to avoid imitating and

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reproducing all the actions that we see or whose description we listen to or read. According
to the present hypothesis, instead, ES makes available to us an exemplary case, a model, in
relation to which understanding of language is also enacted. If therefore it is true that the
symbolic dimension opens up some possibilities for us and creates worlds for us which
only linguistic creatures can enter, on the other hand it is also true that language strongly
exploits mechanisms rooted in our corporeality. Enactment of the simulation process in
understanding language seems to suggest that the symbolic dimension and the bodily one
cohabit in linguistic praxis.
Nevertheless, the nature of this relationship is still not entirely clear, nor are the confines clear between the bodily dimension and the typically or exclusively symbolic one.
Can it be hypothesized that corporeal knowledge also plays a role in understanding logical
operators like, for instance, negation or disjunction, or that it plays a role in understanding the interrogative form? The whole symbolic nature of these linguistic structures
appears in some respects beyond question. Research on these issues is now open and
today many wonder about the possibility of identifying mechanisms that can anchor such
structures to our bodily experience. This is the real challenge for the embodied cognition
approach to the role played by language in human social cognition.
Let us once more return to the Aristotelian notion of paradeigma and appraise other
possible hints for substantiating the analogy with the embodied simulation mechanism.
The understanding that the rhetor calls for through reasoning based on the paradeigma
should lead the citizen to choose what is best for him in various circumstances. The goal
of such reasoning is to determine understanding of a present situation, by analogy with a
historical example or a fable, and, on the basis of this more informed knowledge, to guide
mans choices. In other words, that of the rhetorical example/paradeigma is knowledge
whose main goal is practical and not theoretical.
A practical aim also characterizes embodied simulation. Embodied simulation is always
aimed at navigating in the world and, therefore, eventually at acting. It was hypothesized that embodied simulation allows us a direct, experiential form of understanding of
other peoples actions and experiences and, on the basis of this understanding, it allows us
to regulate our actions and our experiences. These goals are always practical. In some
respects, the process of embodied simulation that is enacted, for instance, when reading a
novel (see Wojciehowski and Gallese 2011), also has a practical aim. Literature recreates a
world of emotions and experiences, the emotions and the experiences of the literary characters inhabiting the fictional world of the novel. The simulation mechanism helps us to
navigate in that world, even if it is a fictitious world; it allows us to understand and,
partly, to relive the emotions of the protagonists and their vicissitudes. The aim in this
case is practical insofar as the simulation mechanism allows us to approach the other with
a secondperson epistemic perspective (Gallese 2014).
ES makes implicit knowledge about others immediately available, with the aim of
regulating our interactions with them. For example, our understanding of literary characters is almost always secondperson, based on the possibility of perceiving analogies
between our own experiences and others and made possible by the hypostatization of
our experiences that is achieved through the simulation mechanism (Wojciehowski and
Gallese, 2011).

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In conclusion, what is ES if not suspension of the concrete application of a p

rocess? Let
us think of when MNs are activated in observing actions performed by others; or of when
canonical neurons are activated while we are looking at the keyboard of a computer thinking
about what we want to write; or when cortical motor neurons are activated when we imagine
ourselves writing on that keyboard. These responses of motor neurons manifest the activation of implicit knowledge, bodily motor knowledge expressing the motor potentialities of the
bodily self mapped by the motor system in terms of their motor outcomes.
Reuse of motor knowledge, in the absence of the movement that realizes it as exemplified by ES is an example of paradigmatic knowledge. Thus, ES is a case of implicit
paradigmatic knowledge. According to the present hypothesis ES allows us to naturalize
the notion of paradigm, anchoring it at a level of subpersonal description, whose neural
correlates we can study.
Our openness to the world is constituted and made possible by a motor system predisposing and allowing us to adapt our daily and contingent pragmatic relationships with the
world against the background of a prefigured but highly flexible plan of motor intentionality. Such a plan provides its coordination to any single contingent modality of relation
with the world, in which it continues to actualize itself. This aspect is important because
it shows that functional processes not specific to humans, like ES, scaffold specific aspects
of human social cognition.

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7Conclusions

In this chapter I addressed and discussed the notion of ES, trying to show that a new
understanding of intersubjectivity can benefit from a bottomup study and characterization of the nonpropositional and non metarepresentational aspects of social cognition
(see Gallese 2003a, 2007).
I also proposed that ES seems to be able to naturalize the notion of paradigm, naturalizing one of the processes making language reflexivity possible, and thus contributing to
create the human. Being a subject entails being a body that learns to express itself and
to express its world thanks to the paradigmESthat allows one to go beyond the body
while remaining anchored to it.
One key issue of the new approach to intersubjectivity proposed here is the investigation of the neural bases of our capacity to be attuned to the intentional relations of others.
At a basic level, our interpersonal interactions do not make explicit use of propositional
attitudes. This basic level consists of ES enabling the constitution of a shared meaningful
interpersonal space. The shared intersubjective space in which we live from birth constitutes a substantial part of our semantic space. Self and other relate to each other because
are opposite extensions of the same correlative and reversible wecentric space (Gallese
2003a). Observer and observed are part of a dynamic system governed by reversible rules.
By means of intentional attunement, the other is much more than a different representational system; it becomes a bodily self, like us.
The specific use of cognitive neuroscience here proposed leads to a new take on social
cognition. This new take brings about the demonstration on empirical ground of the

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constitutive role played in foundational aspects of social cognition by the human body,
when conceived of in terms of its motor potentialities. Needless to say, this only covers a
partial aspect of social cognition. However, ES also provides an epistemological model,
potentially useful for the empirical investigation of the more cognitively sophisticated
aspects of human social cognition. This new epistemological approach to social cognition
has the merit of generating predictions about the intrinsic functional nature of our social
cognitive operations, cutting across, and not being subordinated to a specific mind ontology, like that purported by the classic cognitivist approach.
I am not sure whether or how much Alvin Goldman would agree with this hypothesis.
What is certain is that I would have never been able to formulate it if I hadnt been so
much influenced and inspired from Goldmans fundamental philosophical contribution
to our understanding of human social cognition.

TE
D

iThis work was supported by the EU Grant TESIS and by a grant from Chiesi Foundation to
Vittorio Gallese.
ii For an earlier formulation of this hypothesis, see Gallese 2013; Gallese and Cuccio 2015.

EC

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Reply toGallese

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Vittorio Gallese recounts our meeting at a conference in 1998, where he was spreading
the word about mirror neurons to a large audience that had never heard of them. Mirror
neurons were discovered in Parma, Italy, by a team led by Giacomo Rizzolatti, of which
Gallese is a very prominent part. When I listened to his lecture, the description of
mirror neurons immediately resonated with work that I and other philosophers had
done on the simulation theory of mindreading. The Parma neuroscientists had not
heard of the simulation theory. But it didnt take much for me to convince Gallese of a
possible relationship, or at least homology. Together we published a paper in Trends in
Cognitive Sciences that same year. It proved to be an opportune time to approach social
cognition through the lens of neuroscience, surprisingly, motor neuroscience. In immediately succeeding years there was a great boom of activity provisionally linking mirroring
to various aspects of social cognition. V.S. Ramachandran, a noted psychologist, predicted
that mirror neurons would do for psychology what DNA did for biology. The paper that
Gallese and I published in 1998, alongside a paper by Rizzolatti and Michael Arbib,
became two of the most highly cited papers in all of psychology and neuroscience in the
last decade and a half, according to Gregory Hickok (2014: 23) (himself a critic of the
mirror neuron literature). This was all rather astonishing for me, who entered the scene
with virtually zero background in neuroscience, although I immediately learned a great
deal from the Parma crowd and other scientists, as well as neuroscientifically oriented
philosophers. Especially helpful were Vittorio and Giacomo Rizzolatti, as well as (in
France) Pierre Jacob, Frederique de Vignemont, and Marc Jeannerod. The current
status of mirroring is up for debate. Skeptics abound, but their lines of criticism are
often rather fuzzy. To judge by its title, The Myth of Mirror Neurons, Hickoks book
implies that mirror neurons are a fiction. But the text asserts no such thing; it freely
Goldman and His Critics, First Edition. Edited by Brian McLaughlin and Hilary K. Kornblith.
2016 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2016 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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admits their existence. His real claim is that their contribution and importance have
been overrated. Probably so; but what else is new?
Given space limits, I cannot dive into the territory of mirroring and mindreading.
Instead I focus on another topic Gallese introduces: embodied cognition. We havent
collaborated on this topic, but our views have substantial convergence.
The field of embodied cognition is plagued by the fact that every contributor to it
means something different by it, and usually doesnt explain their meaning clearly. I try to
be clearer. Also I dissociate myself from conceptions of embodiment that deliberately aim
to offer a radical departure from classical cognitivism. Classical artificial intelligence and
cognitive science follow Descartes in regarding intelligence as higherorder reason and
language, phenomena quite distinct from lowerlevel bodily phenomena. Theorists like
Rodney Brooks urge us to view intelligence as a bottomup phenomenon, grounded in
infrahuman systems built for coping (practically) with the environment. This echoes
the perspective of MerleauPonty who contended that even higherorder intelligence is
controlled by the acting body itself, by an I can, not an I think that. Analogously,
J. J. Gibson offered an account of perception free of representations, in contrast with
classical cognitivism, in which representations are central. My approach makes ample
room for representations, and seeks no radical overthrow of classical cognitivism.
Indeed, my approach to embodiment (originally introduced in Goldman and
Vignemont 2009) is not on the body per se but on its representations. The brain is full of
representations of bodily matters (ones own body specifically), or coded in bodyrelatedor
bodilyderived terms. This much is not new. What is new and newsworthy is the discovery
that many cognitive activities with no evident relationship with ones own body are built
upon, or derive from, (own) bodylinked representations. I make no claim that all (mental)
representation is in bodyrelated terms, but claim that there is much more such body
related representation than classical cognitivism acknowledges. Goldman (2012) explains
the matter in terms of bodily codes or formats.

Cognition C is a specimen of embodied cognition if and only if C uses some member of

aspecial class of codes or formats for representing and/or processing its content, viz., a
bodyrelated code or format (Bformat).

Many codes in the mind/brain represent states of the subjects own body (from an internal
perspective). Proprioception and kinaesthesis give the brain information about ones
muscles, joints, and limb positions. Codes associated with activation of the somatosensory
cortex and the motor cortex are used to represent conditions of the bodily surface and to
send commands to bodily effectors (respectively). These are universally acknowledged
types of bodyoriented representations. The intriguing things are new findings that reveal
derivative uses of such representations to perform cognitive tasks distinct from the
(original) bodyoriented tasks. They reuse bodilyrelated representations to represent
other matters. This is what fuels interest, in various parts of cognitive science, in the
embodied cognition movement. Here is an example drawn from the mirroring domain
(by no means the only source of embodiment phenomena). Although the brain initially
uses certain circuits to represent ones own current emotion states such as fear, disgust, or

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anger, it also reuses those circuits to represent the same states in other people (Goldman
and Sripada 2005; Goldman 2013). Such cases of derivative bodily representation
greatly expand the class of what qualifies, under my definition, as bodily cognitions.
The plausibility of this approach receives theoretical backing from approaches to neural
architecture that fly under the label of massive redeployment hypothesis or neural
reuse, as developed by Gallese, Michael Anderson (2010), and others.
(For further discussion of embodied cognition, see the ensuing paper in this volume by
Chaz Firestone, plus my reply.)

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Anderson, M.L. (2010) Neural reuse: A fundamental organizational principle of the brain.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences 33, pp.24566.
Goldman, A.I. (2012). A moderate approach to embodied cognitive science. Review of Philosophy
and Psychology 3(1), pp.7188.
Goldman, A.I. (2013) Joint Ventures: Mindreading, Mirroring, and Embodied Cognition. Oxford
University Press, New York, NY.
Goldman, A.I. and Sripada, C.S. (2005) Simulationist models of facebased emotion recognition.
Cognition 94, pp.193213.
Goldman, A.I. and Vignemont, F. (2009) Is social cognition embodied? Trends in Cognitive Sciences
13(4), pp.1549.
Hickok, Gregory (2014) The Myth of Mirror Neurons. W.W. Norton, New York, NY.

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